Capcom: 'If you make a good game, people will buy it'

[Kenryoku_Maxis]

Gamerace said:

Kenryoku_Maxis said:

Gamerace said:

SaviorX said:

Gamerace said:
I'm going to agree with Mike_intellivision but up it a bit

Make it a good game
Make it a unique experience
Make it a game your audience is interested in
Make sure they know about it

The infamous Psychonauts and Okami are testiment to this. Great games, unique, people knew about them, they just weren't the type of games people were looking to play.

TvsC looks to be an excellent game (I'll own it shortly) but it's hardly unique, even on Wii, and I doubt most Wii owners will care, sadly, even if they did know about it. Really this game should be an easy million seller. Anything less is a shame.

It should because of how good it is, but because of the genre it is in, that is very difficult. No game in the Vs Capcom series has ever sold that much.

Even headlining fighters like Soul Calibur 4 (1.15m PS3/1.35m 360) and Street Fighter 4 (1.62m PS3/1.39m 360) just pass the mark, and those are deeply established and promoted.

TvC got good promo too, thats why the preorders went up nearly 400% Week over Week (2.8k to 11k) and sold 33% of the amount of preorders already made (were 33k, now 45k). It should have a great first week over ~60k.

It's a sad state of affairs when we're calling 60k 'great'.  600k is great.  60K would be 'great' for a little known, niche title from a small developer which is not the case here.

But when other developers are claiming nothing can sell on the Wii, what is the threshold?  I mean, companies like EA, Capcom and Ubisoft are claiming their profit margins are failing, yet they have million sellers on the Wii?  Where exactly do you draw the line?  5 million?  10 Million?  Their games on the HD consoles aren't even coming close to those numbers either, yet the Wii is getting blamed for their financial problems?

Frankly, I think when a Wii game sells over 50,000 copies in its first week, its doing pretty good.  Especially since Wii games 1) Hardly get advertised (if at all) 2) Are proven to have good legs and 3) Are more likely to see sales spikes over the long run than an HD game (which are more front-loaded and rely on heavy advertising....which Wii games usually don't get).

50k would be a great first week sales for Let's Dance.  Because A) It's a totally unknown commodity and B) that game appeals to the Wii's more casual base and will be spread by word of mouth and see long legs.

It's also something of a misnomer that Wii games have tremendously long and stong legs.   They USED to yes.    And still do, but because the Wii's library is now so huge instead of 15-25k per week a title might only see 5k per week unless the games is really unique and creates hype like Let's Dance or has a huge license attached like Star Wars or Call of Duty.

All of this is irrelevant here because a fighting game like this is typically front-loaded even on Wii.  The fans of the genre will pick it up first week and then it'll drop like a rock.   So if it only does 50k first week, then it'll be lucky to ever break 200k lifetime.   Capcom will likely make a little cash off this in WW sales but it's by no means going to be a hit and sadly, I hate to said it, would have likely sold much better on HD consoles where fans of the genre already are takes to SFIV, Tekken, Sould Calibur and Virtua Fighter all being HD exclusive.  And even though the HD graphics would have cost more, this game was dirt cheap to make (as was SFIV).

However, I for one am happy to have this game on Wii and will get many hours of enjoyment out of it.  So a big thanks to Capcom for that.

COme now, do you really think this game isn't going to be ported to the HD consoles?  We all know this game was made for Wii because it was deemed a 'test' market for the Wii.  After it makes its 50,000-200,000 on the Wii, it'll be ported to 360/PS3 within a year.  And I bet you it'll sell even less on each console.

Capcom does this for Nintendo games all the time.  And has been doing this since the GC days.